Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien has named Local 856 Director of Organizing Chris Rosell as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters National Director of Organizing.

Rosell previously served at the I.B.T. as project organizer from 2003 to 2007 before becoming an International Organizer in 2007. He has led and won major national campaigns in warehouse, airline industries and more, including Sysco and US Foods. In 2007, Rosell was introduced to Local 856 when he successfully led the national United Airlines campaign, bringing 9,000 new members into the Teamsters including 3,000 mechanics and related employees at the airline’s San Francisco Maintenance Base.

In 2019, Rosell joined the Local 856 staff to head its organizing department.

“I am honored to accept the challenge and get to work on rebuilding a new I.B.T. Organizing Department that can deliver on the change that members voted for,” said Rosell.

“In Teamster Organizing we can start winning more and winning bigger,” he continued. “Unions are more popular than ever before in most of our lifetimes, but union membership is at the lowest point in this country in 100 years. In the next era of the Teamsters, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to turn workers’ anger into real union power.”

“We are excited that Chris has been tapped by President O’Brien to lead the future of national Teamsters organizing,” said Local 856 Principal Officer Peter Finn. “He has a proven track record of winning at the local and national level, and we are proud to see one of our own take on this critical role at the I.B.T. and the labor movement as a whole.”